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To keep my wanderlust in check, we decided to make a last minute trip to Costa Rica to celebrate our second wedding anniversary and to take advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend. With only five days, we managed to see a quite a bit and fit in some bucket list adventures. Costa Rica had been on our travel radar for some time. So when a good deal on flights arose, we jumped on it. Since the flights were in and out of the capital, San José, we decided to look to the lesser visited Caribbean coast for some laid back vibes.
Best Laid Plans…
Thankfully we kept our itinerary entirely open and didn’t book anything in advance for this trip. Only a week before we were set to arrive, we discovered that the Poás Volcano we’d hoped to visit was currently active and the surrounding park would be closed indefinitely while the activity was being monitored.
The dive shop we contacted when we bought our flights had advised us that the conditions vary during the time of year we were visiting. We were to contact them the week we were arriving to find out if we’d be able to dive. To our disappointment, when we reached out that week, the dive shop told us that some storms had rolled through causing rough seas and leaving the water visibility too low for diving.
We were visiting during the shoulder season between the high and low seasons, and the forecast was calling for rain everyday. Undeterred, we packed our rain jackets and mentally prepared ourselves to get rained on.
Touchdown Costa Rica
Since our flight landed in the late afternoon on Friday, we just grabbed a taxi to go right to our hostel in San José. Fun fact: Costa Rica doesn’t do street names, addresses, or signs the way we’re accustomed to in the USA. More often than not, they use local landmarks to reference where something is located. Super helpful for tourists looking for a specific location… (insert sarcastic eyeroll here)
Once we’d settled our things into our room, we asked the front desk for some restaurant suggestions. They directed us to a street nearby that we could walk to where there was many restaurants and bars for us to choose from. We ended up getting dinner at the Beer Factory where my husband was able to order some local beer to kick off the trip. On our walk back to the hostel we also stopped at the supermarket to pick up some snacks and water. We headed to bed early knowing we would have to be up to catch our 6:00am bus to Cahuita, a small town on the Caribbean coast.
Laid Back Cahuita
After an extra long bus ride due to construction delays, we arrived at the bus station in Cahuita. Once we arrived we were still a bit lost since there weren’t signs telling us where to go from there and the station is about a ten minute walk outside of town. We just took a guess and started walking, luckily we ended up finding town where ordered some smoothies at a small cafe. While enjoying our cold fruity beverages, we looked up some places to stay and tried to make a plan for the day. That rain in the forecast? Nowhere to be seen this day. It was hot and sunny while we were dressed more for cool and rainy while we were lugging our backpacks all over.
Our objective was to find a room to drop our stuff in then get out to the Sloth Sanctuary before the last tour at 2:00pm. We decided to walk back to the bus station where we’d seen a payphone to try to call to see if some places had vacancies. Unfortunately for us, the payphone didn’t work so we ended up walking back to town to grab a taxi to take us out to Cabinas Tito to see if they had a room for us that night. During the ride we enjoyed chatting with our friendly driver who was a transplant to the area from Spain.
Cabinas Tito
We finally hit a spot of luck as we were pulling into the parking area. Tito, the young host who runs the Cabinas Tito was just leaving to run a tour. Our driver flagged him down asking if he had a room for us in rapid Spanish. Had we been by ourselves, we would have completely missed him. This was the fastest we’ve ever booked a room: Tito ran to grab the key, let us look at the room to make sure it was acceptable, we handed him money, and away he went to run his tour. We quickly dropped our bags and hopped back in the waiting taxi so we could make it out to the Sloth Sanctuary before it was too late.
Sloth Sanctuary
If you ever find yourself in the southeast of Costa Rica, I would recommend making a stop at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica. They are the original rescue center for injured, orphaned, and abandoned sloths. There are a couple of different tour options, and they even offer rooms for overnight stays. This was one of the highlights of our trip. However, do plan your transport better than we did since it took us nearly an hour to catch a bus back to town once our tour was complete. Read more about our visit to the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica.
Playa Negra
Once we finally got back to our cabina (note that each ‘room’ they have is actually its own little cabina) we changed into swimsuits and walked down to Playa Negra which was only a few minutes away. One of the reasons we chose to go to Cahuita was to visit Playa Negra since my husband had never been to a black sand beach before. The beach was wonderful, and there were only a handful of people there. We both enjoyed cooling off in the water after a long, hot day (rain, where were you?!) As a bonus, we were there in time for the sunset which was surprisingly beautiful considering we were on the eastern coast of the country. Once the sun set, we headed back to the room to shower before walking into town for dinner.
Miss Edith’s Restaurant
We had been looking forward to visiting this region of Costa Rica in part because of the area’s mix of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean influences. For dinner we chose Miss Edith’s, a local Caribbean restaurant known to have great jerk dishes. It took us a little while to find it since it was literally off the main path where all the other restaurants and bars were, but oh man, was it worth the time to find in the dark. Get the dish on our experience at Miss Edith’s.
Rafting Tomorrow?
Upon arriving back at our cabina, we hopped on the wi-fi and booked a white water rafting trip with Exploradores Outdoors for Sunday, the very next day. We were amazed when we received the confirmation email, since it less than 12 hours before they’d be picking us up. The tour included pickup at our accommodations, breakfast, the rafting trip, lunch, and transport to our choice of the Caribbean coast, San José, or Arenal at the end of the day. Since we needed a way to get back to San José, this was the perfect fit for us.
We had an incredible day rafting the Río Pacuare! I don’t consider myself an extreme sports enthusiast, but I really loved rafting! The only bummer is we ended up with really sunburned legs since we forgot to reapply our sunscreen and that forecasted rain was nowhere to be found.
San José aka Chepe
Due to our sunburned legs, we kept our night in San José, or Chepe as the locals affectionately refer to it, low-key by just heading to nearby cafe, Spoon, for a light dinner. We ordered the chifrijo (a popular snack of fried pork, beans, tomatoes, spices, rice, tortilla chips, and avocado) along with flan carmelo to share. On the walk back to our hostel we stopped at the grocery store to stock up on water, snacks, and beer for the remainder of our trip. Back at the hostel we booked a tour for the next afternoon to Café Britt Finca, (Café Britt is Costa Rica’s first gourmet coffee roaster) and a hostel in Alajuela which is closer to the airport for our flight out on Tuesday.
Walking All of Downtown San José
Conveniently breakfast was provided at the hostel so that was one less thing to worry about. We were able to enjoy pancakes, watermelon, and coffee on Monday morning before walking downtown. While many people skip spending time in Chepe there are a number of things to do there. We walked down to the Teatro Nacional and enjoyed a nearly private tour in English of San José’s most revered building. The theater is gorgeous with a neoclassical facade and richly decorated interior. From the theater we wandered over to the Catedral Metropolitana, but only took a quick peek inside the doors out of respect for the service that was in progress. To do some souvenir shopping we walked over to the Mercado Artesanal, an open air market. Before searching out the pickup location for our tour, we stopped at Soda Nena for casados, aka typical plates for lunch.
The pickup location wasn’t difficult to find so we wandered the surrounding streets and checked out interesting stores we saw while killing some time. When there was only about twenty minutes left until our pickup time, we walked over to wait at the location to make sure we didn’t miss our shuttle. All of a sudden, we found that forecasted rain! A sudden downpour chased us under an overhang in front of some shops to wait for our shuttle so we put on our rain coats and pulled the rain cover over my travel backpack (which is part of my favorite travel gear).
Café Britt Finca
Our tour of Café Britt started with a brief history on the origin of coffee, the conditions needed for cultivating it, and how the growing conditions combined with the roasting affect the flavor. The tour included an explanation of the different roasts and how professional tasters determine the blends and roasts that become the coffee drinks enjoyed around the world. I would definitely say that this tour is family/kid friendly too. I enjoyed our tour despite never having been a coffee drinker, you can read more about our tour of Café Britt.
Understanding Uber
At the recommendation of the shuttle driver who took us from San José to Café Britt, we ordered an Uber to take us to our hostel in Alajuela. Our Uber driver didn’t speak very much English so we used our little bit of Spanish to chat with him and ended up having a lovely (if a bit broken) conversation about our marriages, work, and homes. Language barriers don’t have to stop you from connecting with other humans, the challenge just makes it all the more worthwhile.
We’re Outta Here
Alajuela isn’t a big tourist destination, but a lot of people still visit since it’s where the airport is located. For dinner we ended up at a Tex-Mex spot called Jalapeños Central. The margaritas and passionfruit cheesecake were so, so tasty! The hostel’s rooms weren’t especially charming, but with its central location and free airport shuttle it was a good choice for us on our last night in Costa Rica. Before catching that free shuttle on Tuesday morning, we wandered over to a small cafe for desayunos típicos, or the typical breakfast. This made for a delicious meal to wrap up our last minute trip to Costa Rica.
It was last minute. It was a whirlwind. It was worth it.
We loved every minute of our trip and are looking forward to going back to explore more of the country. Have you ever visited somewhere only to find yourself immediately looking forward to coming back?
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I was thinking I had read this before. There’s my comment from two years ago. Do we know each other so long. Still an amazing trip that you really stuffed full of cool things.
Haha you didn’t need to read and comment on this a second time, John! (I mean it’s possible there’s something on my site you haven’t read 🤔) I just wish I could take a quick trip somewhere like this one to Costa Rica, coronavirus killed all my 2020 travel plans and it makes me sad. Here’s to hoping 2021 is better! Maybe I’ll even drag my hubby across the pond & we can have a pint 🍻
I remember the days of being able to make spontaneous, last minute vacation plans. Costa Rica is still high on our list. We’ve always wanted to see a sloth up close at that sanctuary.
Hopefully we can get back to last minute trips like this soon! You could make Costa Rica your first one post-pandemic 😉
Very cool trip! We’ve been to Costa Rica just before the French lockdown in March, we loved the country!
Truth is, we should have stayed there instead of coming back 🙂
Such a cool trip! I’m somehow craving delicious jerk chicken all of the sudden!
Mmm… it was so, so good! Plus those garlic potatoes, a seriously drool-worthy meal. Thanks for stopping by!
Lovely adventure! Funnily, i was told by locals that San Jose was boring doe tourists as it was a capital city. I did Tamarindo the beach town in Feb, just before the world went into lockdown!
I think most people dismiss San Jose since tourism in Costa Rica focuses on nature (rainforest, beach, etc), but I think it’s worth spending a day or two in the capital for the markets, theaters, museums, etc!
What a phenomenal last minute trip! The sloth sanctuary! The ceviche! The passion fruit cheesecake. When can I go?!?!? 🙂
It was soo good! I think I read Costa Rica recently re-opened to tourism with negative Covid tests, travel/health insurance, etc, but it’ll probably be awhile before any of us can really get traveling for fun again. Hopefully you can safely visit soon!
I’ve been lost in Costa Rica more times than I care to remember due to that lack of addresses that you mention 🙂
Oh no! Haha it was definitely a challenge, but right about now I’d take being lost in Costa Rica over staring at the walls of my house through this pandemic 🤷🏻♀️
This looks so incredible! Everything looks and sounds awesome, from your photos to the hostels to the food and especially the sloth sanctuary! This just made me want to visit Costa Rica even more
Definitely get to Costa Rica if you can, it’s such an awesome country to visit!! We had an amazing time!
It must’ve been a great trip! The photos are beautiful! I love the sloth crossing 😁💞
Thank you, we seriously had so much fun! I love taking pictures of things like the sloth crossing sign since it’s not something we see in the Northeast US.
Wow, this looks like an amazing trip! Costa Rica has been boosted up my travel bucket list. Great post! 🙂
Thanks so much! We loved it & are dying to go back already so it’s highly recommended! Bonus points for there being affordable flights from the US pretty often!
This sounds like a fabulous spontaneous trip, you did so much in five days! I would love to go back to Costa Rica and see the beaches!
It was so great! The fact that we’d booked nothing in advance turned out to be half the fun!
It looks beautiful!! I can’t wait to go to Costa Rica!!!
I hope you love it, we did! We’re already eyeing up flight deals to go again!
I love a good spontaneous trip every once in a while. Looks like an amazing place.
I’m normally much more of a planner, but this turned out to be so much fun! We absolutely loved Costa Rica!
Sounds like a a great adventure was had. I’d love to visit Costa Rica.
Thanks, I would highly recommend visiting if you get the chance, it’s a beautiful country!
I am so intrigued to visit Costa Rica now. I have always wanted to go to a black sand beach. Trips with no planning seen the absolute best!! Happy belated anniversary ❤
We had a great time winging it! Thank you!
Sounds like a great trip despite the last minute things and mother nature!
Mother Nature changed our plans for sure, but we found other things to do & still had a ton of fun!
Ok so I remember your post on Miss Edith’s but now you added a sloth sanctuary and passion fruit cheesecake to the mix and I’m definitely sold on Costa Rica! You did a lot in 5 days. Would you say it’s easy enough to get around Costa Rica?
Costa Rica is awesome!!! Definitely go. Yeah, I thought it was pretty easy to get around. We took the bus from San José to Cahuita, and our white water rafting tour provided us with transport back to San José where we walked or used uber to get around. There’s plenty of options for transportation (a couple of airports, buses, plus can book private transport and tours), you can also rent a car, but definitely do some homework before picking that option since it can be dangerous driving after dark, etc.
Great trip and post. The sloth sanctuary sounds amazing.
Thank you! We loved our visit to the Sloth Sanctuary!
Great photos! I’m glad you had a good time in Costa Rica!
Thank you so much, we had an absolute blast in Costa Rica!
Wow, that’s interesting!